


Forces of Time and Space

by popsicletheduck



Series: Some Stars are Reborn by Collision [1]
Category: Star Trek, shield of tomorrow
Genre: Anxiety, Aromantic Character, Blood, Childhood Friends, Concussions, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Post Dominion War, Rebuilding Friendships, death mention, references to past trauma/PTSD, space, trying to run from your problems, which doesn't work when your problems are on the same ship as you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsicletheduck/pseuds/popsicletheduck
Summary: Rowan Griffith is a young lieutenant serving on the Federation vesselUSS Bell Burnell, Intrepid Class. With the Dominion War finally over and the galaxy slowly returning to a new state of normal, theBellis getting back to her job as a science vessel. But normality gets a kick in the pants for Rowan when Ash Rosewood, their best friend from childhood who they haven’t spoken to in twelve years, gets transferred onto theBell. Against the backdrop of an ordinary mission gone horribly wrong, can Rowan and Ash repair what they once had, or are some mistakes impossible to fix?“Adding gravity to relativity provides an amazing result: spacetime becomes ‘organic’, taking its form from the matter and energy it contains. This is Einstein’s general theory of relativity and it has the capacity to tell us about the past and future of the universe.”Dr. David Peak





	1. In Which The USS Bell Burnell Gets A New Crew Member, Lieutenant JG Rowan Griffith And Lieutenant Ash Rosewood Discover That Improbable Doesn’t Mean Impossible, And Social Constraints Are Barely Followed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a work of love, mostly love for the entire Trek universe, but more specifically love for the excellent RPG show _Shield of Tomorrow_. Not only did it spark my love for Trek as a whole, but my life would be substantially worse. There are plenty of references to _Shield_ in this work, some of them spoilery and obvious and a few more subtle (and a few to other Campbell 'verse shows!), but you don't have to have watched it to understand and enjoy this story. But also you definitely should, it's all on youtube and excellent.  
> And of course, the biggest of possible thank yous from the very bottom of my heart to both ElfGift and witchfall, without whom this fic would not exist. Elf for continuing to encourage my nonsense and lending me her daughter, and witchfall for the beta that made this much more readable.  
> And one last note from Elf:  
>  _incoherent yelling about the space children_

The  _ USS Bell Burnell _ NCC-74713, Intrepid Class sits silent and still in dock. Lieutenant JG Rowan Griffith stands just as still in one of her hallways. The silence is unnerving to the lieutenant. It’s been a while since the ship had been in dock, and although they aren’t here for long, just a handful of personnel transfers, it’s long enough that they’re starting to miss the hum under their feet. 

In fact, it’s because of those transfers that Rowan is currently waiting in the hall. Well, not officially. Officially if anyone asked it’s because science and engineering working in tandem had discovered a minor problem with the ship’s internal sensors at this point exactly and they’re standing here in order to help recalibrate them. There are even people in engineering who will back up their story if called on.

The fact that this spot is conveniently just down the hall from the transporter rooms is complete coincidence. 

It had taken cashing in every single favor they’d been owed in order to set this up, but it’s important. They need to see. They need to know. 

Muffled voices from down the hall. Try as they might, Rowan can only make out general voices, not the words themselves.

Commander Kediac is in there, and Lieutenant Commander Nakamura, the welcoming committee for Nakamura’s new second, a transfer from the  _ Sally Ride  _ to take Lieutenant Prell’s place after they had been promoted and transferred to  _ Aotūroa _ . The transfer is supposed to meet the rest of alpha shift bridge crew after Nakamura had shown them around engineering, but Rowan needs to know now. 

If they’re wrong, they would need time to process.

If they’re right, they would need time to prepare.

The doors to Transporter Room One slide open. Rowan takes one shuffling step back down the hall.

The commander steps out first, hands tucked behind his back, perfectly poised and expressionless as only a Vulcan could be. Nakamura is behind him, halfway turned around, still talking to the lieutenant, her traditional Bajoran earring swinging and sparkling in the light. Behind her-

It’s an intake of breath that Rowan isn’t intending, an instinctual response to… God, what are they even feeling? Because that is, that is…

It’s Ash Rosewood,  _ their _ Ash Rosewood. Older now, obviously, than years ago when they had seen her for the last time at Academy, but obviously her. Still her, even here and now in the hallways of the  _ Bell _ , dressed in the gold of operations with two pips aligned neatly on her collar. 

Still her, and yet… 

She’s already looking around, sharp eyes taking in the details and Rowan should be going, they should go  _ right now _ but they’re stuck in place, frozen in the face of uncertainty in a way they haven’t been in years now, in a way that could’ve gotten them killed but they can’t move and suddenly her eyes meet theirs, a spark of connection traveling down an empty corridor and that breath they took catches in their throat, and Ash-

There’s a shuddering, shifting wave of emotion on her face that Rowan can’t even begin to classify, but it doesn’t matter. Something snaps like a breaking coronal loop and they’re off down the hallway as fast as is still professionally appropriate, hands clenched into fists at their side.

They walk as fast as they can, but they can’t escape the piece of their past that’s been flung onto their ship with them.

 

Safely sequestered away behind a forcefield and dressed in protective gear, Lieutenant Commander Ryhleth Th’avorak is deep into caring for some of the more… exotic plants in the Advanced Research Lab when there’s a buzz from the door.

“Just a moment!” they call. They carefully extract themselves from the quarantine around a particularly fascinating sample from Trao-4 that secreted a highly acidic coating strong enough to melt flesh and yet not itself, peeling off gloves and grabbing their cane from where it rested against the forcefield. 

Upon opening the door they’re met with an unfamiliar face, which is surprising enough on its own. The fact that said unfamiliar officer is also holding a plant only served to make things more interesting.

“Lieutenant Commander Th’avorak? I’m Lieutenant Ash Rosewood, the new engineering transfer. I sent in some forms about bringing organic matter on board and I was told that you wanted to check it yourself.” She stands stiff and sharp at a perfect attention, like she’s meeting one of the upper brass instead of just another lieutenant commander.

“Right, of course.” Ryhleth smiles, trying to put her at ease. It only seems to partially work. “Just a few scans and such to make sure that you’re not accidentally carrying something nasty onto the ship as a precaution, I’m sure you know how it goes.”

She only nods in response, hesitantly handing the little plant in its decorated pot over when they reach for it.

“It’s a lovely specimen.  _ Oxalis triangularis _ , from Earth, right?”

A flicker of surprise and a minute relaxation at that. “Yes, ser.”

They hum thoughtfully as they begin work. “And you’re Nakamura’s new second in command, correct?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Well don’t let her intimidate you. She’s a big softy at heart. And don’t be afraid to call her out on her crap. That’s why we have seconds, and shards above know she needs one.” Their antenna twitch at their own joke but Rosewood remains quiet.

“I’ll do my best, commander.”

“That’s all anyone can ask of you. And if I know you engineering types, ‘your best’ is a near miracle at times.”

“Thank you, ser.”

The scan finishes, the results flashing by on screen. Ryhleth pokes through them for a moment, dutifully checking to see if the transporters had somehow managed to miss some contaminant, but the data is as clear as they expected it to be.

“Well, looks like you’re all clean!” They hand the plant back to Rosewood with a bit of a flourish, revealing in the process the name  _ Susie  _ painted in curling script on the side of the pot. “Don’t be afraid to stop by if you need a hand in taking care of it. Plants are my specialty.”

“I can tell, ser.” A dry smile and a glance around the room. Behind the force field there are samples and specimen everywhere, making it infinitely clear the type of research that they’re conducting on board.

“I suppose it is a bit obvious. Well, best of luck on the  _ Bell _ .”

“Thank you, lieutenant commander.” With a polite nod, Rosewood heads out of the lab.

For a moment Ryhleth just stares off after her. There’s a solid foundation under whatever anxiety clings to her now, they’re sure of it. As soon as she shakes it off, she’ll make a fine second in command for Nakamura.

Their thoughts circle around to their own second, and with a slight chirp they activate their comm badge.

“Th’avorak to Griffith.”

They’re met with only silence as they start heading back into the quarantine section.

“Lieutenant Griffith.”

They slow to a halt just outside the forcefield, still waiting for a response that just doesn’t come.

“Griffith!”

Finally there’s a strangled yelp from the other end and the sound of an impact. “Yes, ser! Sorry, commander, got caught up in my train of thought there.”

“I just wanted to remind you that we’re supposed to meet Nakamura in the mess hall after shift today so she can introduce her new second to the rest of the bridge crew, which means you can’t hole up in your quarters reading papers tonight.”

“I’m sorry, ser, but I need to finish these navigation calculations for our next assignment before I go off duty and they’re taking some time.” The lie rolls off their tongue as smooth as Andorian silk, but it’s still very clearly a lie. Griffith had already been working for two hours on double checking the  _ Bell _ ’s projected course against gravitational and magnetic fields, and even at their very slowest they had gotten it done in four hours before. And that had been when they were on the very edge of charted space, not a fairly routine run through the Beta Quadrant.

“Why don’t you have Pareja finish up for you?”

“Well I’m nearly done, commander, and I just thought it would be easier if I did it.”

“Griffith?”

“Yes, ser?”

“Don’t lie to me again. I’ll see you at dinner. Th’avorak out.”

The link cuts off with a chirp.

Ryhleth lingers at the doorway a moment longer, deep in thought.

Something is up with their second officer.

And finding out what just became their first priority.

 

Ash trails a respectful distance behind Lieutenant Commander Nakamura, presenting the perfect picture of an attentive officer. It’s not even entirely false, either. Sure, the  _ Bell Burnell  _ might be the sister ship of the  _ Sally Ride _ , but they aren’t identical, and doing her job well is going to rely on knowing their differences as well as their similarities.

And so far, the biggest difference seems to be Nakamura herself, who’s about as different from the  _ Sally Ride’s  _ head engineer, Commander Zhiv, as it’s possible to be. The earring on her right ear marks her as Bajoran, but her name seems far more human. She does have a few nose ridges, but they’re less pronounced than is typical. With the crew around her she’s friendly and warm, smiling and asking questions. The officers seem to respond in kind, implying that this behavior is typical and not a departure from the day-to-day running of the department.

But everything seems to be running smoothly, even though engineering seems a bit… messy. There are tools and data PADDs spread out in odd places, tucking into corners or perched on the edges of work stations. But the longer Ash looks, the more it becomes clear that there’s an underlying system to it all. Everyone seems to know where everything is, even when things are in non-intuitive places.

So she is listening and paying attention as Nakamura shows her around. But while she keeps it entirely off her face, she’s a little… distracted.

It had been just a moment, and she’d been so focused on other things, so she couldn’t know for sure, but it had looked like-

But it couldn’t be, right? The odds against it are astronomical. The galaxy is huge, Starfleet is huge, it couldn’t have been-

But they had certainly looked like Rowan Griffith.

What would be the bigger coincidence, serving on a ship with a science officer who just so happened to look like Rowan, or serving on the same ship as Rowan?

Surely the most logical explanation is that she was wrong and the person didn’t look like Rowan at all and she just thought that they did. A similar haircut or build or something of that sort. But why would her brain supply her with that face? She hadn’t thought about Rowan in- there’s a guilty twinge deep in her stomach -in years now.

Why here? Why now?

She’s distracted momentarily from her anxious thoughts as she and Nakamura reach the warp core itself, the heart of engineering and the heart of the ship. Ash has been serving on ships for six years now, but there still isn’t anything as simultaneously wonderful and comforting as a warp core, even one currently powered down in dock. And of course there was no warp core as beautiful as an Intrepid class warp core, the fastest and most advanced in the whole fleet.

Nakamura catches her admiration and smiles. “She is a beauty, isn’t she? She’s survived the worst we could throw at her and just keeps ticking.”

“Yeah.” Ash smiles back. This is where she feels at home. This is where she feels grounded. Everything else might change, but engineering is her constant.

“Nakamura!” comes a shout from behind. “You said you wanted to see me?”

Coming down the hall towards them is a Betazoid man, identifiable by his distinctive black eyes, grinning as he approaches.

“I know you’ll be meeting a lot of new people today, but I thought you should also have a chance to meet the head of beta shift engineering…” It’s here Nakamura takes a breath, as if she’s steadying herself. “Lieutenant Biceh.”

His grin tightens a bit, but doesn’t waver as he puts out a hand. “Most people just call me Beta-beta.”

“Lieutenant Rosewood,” she responds, shaking the offered hand. The name doesn’t bother her, although this would be yet another Betazoid who would have to put up with her crap.

It’s clear from the look on his face that either he heard some of that or he was feeling some of the mess of emotion she’s quickly trying to bury a little farther for his sake.

“Best of luck on the ship, lieutenant. Now if you’ll excuse me, commander, I need to finish getting ready for my shift.”

“Get out of here, then.” Nakamura waves him off with an informal dismissal before turning back to Ash. “Any questions before we wrap this up? I have some duties to finish before alpha shift ends.”

“Just one. I noticed that the organization system appears to be different here from my previous posting and I was wondering-”

“Oh, yes,” Nakamura cuts her off, “I forgot. Well, all the things around us, living and nonliving, have a spirit, an essence. And as living beings perform better and are more content when the desires of their spirits are acknowledge and met, so too is it with the spirits on the nonliving. The objects in engineering are placed in the way that best allows the needs of their spirits to be met.”

Ash just nods. Certainly not the explanation she was expecting to get, but she could work with this. “Of course, respect is integral to the core of Starfleet.”

The lieutenant commander looks at her, and she knows that she’s being evaluated, measured up to the second whose spot she’s now filling. Ash hopes that she isn’t found to be lacking.

“Right,” Nakamura says. “Now I have to go. Do you need someone to show you to your quarters?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

“Then I’ll see you at dinner.”

Ash leaves engineering, making her way up to Deck 2, her mind running at a million miles an hour. Whatever came of it, this assignment was shaping up to be an interesting one.

 

Rowan slips into their quarters, having definitely not ran there from the Advanced Research Lab. As the door shuts behind them, they breathe a sigh of relief. As far as they know, no one who knew that they weren’t supposed to be going to their quarters saw them going to their quarters, so maybe this would all work out.

They’re not going to dinner. They can’t. They won’t. They saw her once and realized that was the last time they wanted to see her.

With a groan they collapse onto their bed. How many years did they hold fantasies of Ash suddenly appearing again and the two of them working everything out, going back to the inseparable duo that they were as kids? But now, faced with the reality of it, they’ve discovered that they don’t want that at all.

A frustrating little voice in the back of their head reminds them that they don’t really have a choice. They can try to avoid dinner all they want, but they’ll be working on the same ship, the same shift, the same  _ bridge _ as Ash fucking Rosewood.

A small chirp comes from their bedside table where they tossed their communicator. “Th’avorak to Griffith.”

For a moment they consider not answering at all, but that will just get them into more trouble down the line. “Griffith here.”

“Where are you.” It’s hardly a question, a rare sternness to their tone like the weight of a glacier.

“In my quarters, commander, the same place I’ve been after shift this whole week.”

There’s an answering click as the communication ends, the line going dead. With a little luck, Th’avorak has given up on them as a lost cause and they have the rest of the night to themselves in relative peace.

They change into their off duty uniform and order a chicken sandwich from the replicator, scrolling through scientific journals as they do. A year after the end of the Dominion War and good articles were finally starting to appear again outside of work on weapons systems and shields, most of which were kept out of publication anyway.

They’re debating between reading a paper on the breakdown of local realism and the entanglement of photons in relation to psychic events or new mathematical solutions and experiments into the possibility of quantum cloning when there’s a chime at their door.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Rowan Penn Griffith,” Th’avorak calls, deadly serious. “Open this door.”

Rowan winces at their full name and rank, shoving themself up from the chair to stumble over to the door. On the other side Th’avorak stands ramrod straight, staring down at them with their full six foot three of height, their antenna stiff and eyes piercing. 

“Lieutenant commander,” they mutter, but Th’avorak cuts them off.

“I informed you that you were required to attend dinner with the rest of the bridge crew after the end of shift today less than two hours ago. Why are you in your quarters?”

“I wasn’t feeling…” they start, ready to lie again, but Th’avorak’s warning from earlier comes back to them.  _ Don’t lie to me again. _ “I really don’t want to meet the new lieutenant, ser.”

“You don’t have a choice. You will be working with her on the bridge.”

“I know, but…” How do they even begin to explain? Do they even want to?

Th’avorak softens just a little. “I know that this is a change and that she isn’t Prell. But you do have to work with her. This is something that you are going to need to figure out yourself, and I advise you to do it as soon as possible. The counselors are open to you, but if you continue to act in this manner I will have no choice but to send you there myself. I don’t want to do that, and I don’t think you want me to do that.”

“No, ser.”

“Then let’s go to dinner. Everyone else is already waiting for us.”

Rowan is going to figure this out. They don’t have another choice.

 

The dinner is perhaps the worst and most awkward dinner that Rowan has ever attended. What makes it worse it that apparently they’re the only one who finds it awkward.

All of senior staff is there minus the captain, along with Lieutenant Almasi, the second in command of security, and Ensign To, the secondary pilot. In short, everyone that regularly worked on the alpha shift bridge.

“Griffith!” Lieutenant Elliott greets them as they arrive slinking in behind Th’avorak, with a bright smile. “We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

“Just running a little late.” They try to smile back. It doesn’t work.

Ash is already there, the absolute picture of poise and social graces, and Rowan is forcibly reminded of the garden parties they both were forced to attend as children, where Rowan would sneak out early to ruin their fancy clothes and Ash would dutifully attend the whole time.

And then a Christmas party, many, many years later where-

They drag themself back to the present.

“This is Lieutenant JG Rowan Griffith,” Nakamura is introducing them, “second in command of science.”

That at least gets a crack in Ash’s perfect facade, but so quickly that Rowan still has no idea what’s behind it. The two of them shake hands.

Polite. Detached. Distant.

Nurse Obaa arrives then in a whirlwind of dark hair and apologies. “Sorry, sorry I’m late, I was trying to get Gwyn to come but he didn’t want to.”

Rowan tries to shoot a very pointed sideways look at Th’avorak, but they just as pointedly ignore it.

Dinner proceeds. They all sit down and order. Conversation happens, although Rowan doesn’t say anything and doesn’t even pay attention, words washing over them as so much senseless noise.

The food arrives. They poke halfheartedly at it. They’re not really hungry anymore. They think back to the chicken sandwich now getting cold and dry in their room.

Elliott tries to draw them into the conversation by asking about the recent collision of two white dwarf stars that the  _ Bell _ had observed and taken data on. Rowan provides the shortest explanation they can. The conversation moves on.

Everyone else seems to be finishing up their food. Rowan pushes back from the table and stands up.

“Excuse me,” they mutter and leave the mess hall, fighting to keep from sprinting back to their room.

They don’t feel like they can breathe again until the door slides closed behind them.

 

Ash watches Rowan leave without even an attempt at a proper excuse. There’s a pit in her stomach that she’s trying very, very hard to ignore, if not for her own sake then for the sake of the Betazoid nurse that’s sitting across from her.

She was right and wrong all at once. It is Rowan, Rowan Griffith, her childhood friend who now apparently can’t even be in the same room as her for more than an hour. She doesn’t know what she expected if she ever met them again, but somehow it wasn’t this.

Th’avorak is watching them leave too, their face carefully neutral, although their antenna are twitching. They turn back toward Ash. “Please accept my apologies on their behalf. They aren’t usually like this.”

Ash smiles, but she can’t quite keep a bit of sadness from creeping in at the corners. “It’s fine. I understand.”

She doesn’t, not really. And at the same time she does.

The only variable in play is her. Whatever changed came back to her.

The rest of the crew is nothing but polite and friendly, and more than engaging in conversation.  Ash finds it more helpful just to observe them interacting with each other, determining relationships and personalities.

Nakamura and Th’avorak are clearly old friends from the way they sit next to each other, exchanging glances that she can’t read but clearly they can. Almasi and To have some kind of friendly rivalry going on, while Almasi pulls Obaa into lovingly roasting the doctor who didn’t show. Elliott oddly seems a little outside of everything, although no one is purposefully excluding him. 

The most surprising one is the commander, the Vulcan, who apparently was having a difficult time focusing on anyone other than Nakamura. Certainly something she would have to explore more at a later date.

Everyone else is working their way through dessert and drinks (Ash had politely declined) when the last member of senior staff makes an appearance.

Captain Parekh walks up to their table, and there’s a clattering of chairs being pushed back as everyone moves to stand. Ash hurriedly follows suit and barely manages to stop herself from pitching face first into the table when her foot catches on the chair leg.

“At ease,” Parekh says. Even if she had been missing the pips, it would’ve been extraordinarily clear who she was by the way that everyone reacts to her. She glances over Ash with a critical eye. “Lieutenant Rosewood, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Welcome aboard the  _ Bell Burnell _ .”

“Thank you, captain.”

Parekh nods, nods to the rest of them and their polite murmurings of “captain”, and then walks off again.

“Not very chatty, is she,” Ash remarks.

If a Vulcan could look affronted, Kediac did. “Captain Parekh runs a very efficient and organized ship and is the reason that the  _ Bell Burnell  _ and her crew survived the war.” 

“I meant no offense, just an observation.”

The rest of the dinner passes without incident, and eventually Ash takes her leave. It’s only back in her quarters that the full emotion of what happened hits her, a wave of confusion and frustration and sadness and deep anger at herself. 

She messed this up. She ruined things between her and Rowan.

She was going to fix this.


	2. In Which Lieutenant Ash Rosewood Puts Her Skills To Use, Several Conversations Over Food And Drink Are Had, And The Local Scuttlebutt Is Examined

It’s been about a week since Ash arrived on the  _ Bell _ and it seemed like her luck simply couldn’t get any worse. Rowan still wouldn’t talk to her outside of a handful of words exchanged on shift, but that isn’t what currently has her pacing around her room, waving her hands in frustration.

Susie is sick. Her faithful potted companion’s beautiful purple leaves are going yellow around the edges and its stems are drooping. Ash has tried everything she knows, but nothing seems to be helping.

She realizes it is a bit ridiculous to be this anxious over a plant, but Susie is a constant in her life, the only marking of ‘home’ that she’s had since joining Starfleet. To have it die now would be one thing too many.

She’s going to need to ask for help, but she hasn’t been on the  _ Bell _ long enough to know who has an interest in-

Ash throws up her hands in exasperation at her own stupidity. How could she be so dumb. Lieutenant Commander Th’avorak has a whole lab full of plants. They even offered to help with Susie when they scanned it, and the offer had seemed genuine.

Besides, this would be a good chance for her to test some other theories she’d been working on as well.

She taps her communicator. “Lieutenant Rosewood to Lieutenant Commander Th’avorak.”

“Rosewood, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve been having some plant troubles, and I was hoping that you might be of assistance.”

“Of course. Come by my quarters and we’ll see if we can’t get you sorted out.”

In a few minutes, Ash finds herself stepping into Th’avorak’s quarters. They’re bigger than her own, as is only fitting for a member of senior staff, and like the lab below, it’s clear what the head of science’s focus is. There are plants spread out across several surfaces, although these are decidedly less dangerous looking than the ones in the lab. But it’s not those personal touches that Ash finds interesting.

Scattered around the room are four ushaan-tors, the traditional Andorian dueling weapon. One seems to be purely decorative, hanging on the wall next to something written in Andorian. The rest are placed in spots of easy access on side tables and near the door. Th’avorak didn’t strike her as either the traditional or paranoid type, which meant there’s more going on here than she currently understands.

They catch her gaze as it settles momentarily on the writing. “It’s an old saying,” they explain without prompting. “‘Let your woes become your deadliest weapon.’ Fitting, don’t you think?”

Her eyes flicker to the cane that Th’avorak is leaning against, slick black and unadorned, and she knows instinctively that it’s as much a weapon as a necessary mobility device. “Yes, ser.”

“But you didn’t come here to talk Andorian philosophy. Let’s see what we can do for Susie.”

With a flash of surprise that they remembered its name, Ash offers them the plant, which they carry over to a small personal workstation.

Step one of her plan completed. On to step two.

“Commander? If you don’t mind, I had a question.”

They don’t look up from where they’re currently working, but for a moment Ash almost thinks she sees a flicker of tension run up their back. “What is it?”

“Well, you and Lieutenant Commander Nakamura seem close, and-”

Th’avorak turns around at that, a tiny trowel still in hand. “I’m going to stop you there. Nakamura and I are old friends, very good friends, but there is nothing romantic between us at all. I don’t see her that way, and she doesn’t see me that way.”

“Of course, ser. What I was about to ask was, what’s up with Commander Kediac and Nakamura?”

There is a beat of perfect silence, just long enough for Ash to think that maybe she just got this horribly wrong, before Th’avorak’s face splits into a wide grin.

“It’s really that obvious?” they ask.

“It was to me, but-”

“What was it that gave it away? Wait, hold on, sit down, we need to do this properly.”

Once all the bustling has settled, Ash is sitting at a small table across from Th’avorak while a pot of tea steeps between them with leaves from plants they had picked from around the room. They made tea better than the replicator, they had explained.

“Everyone knows that Nakamura and Kediac have feelings for each other,” they say, “except Nakamura and Kediac, who insist that they don’t. But if it was obvious enough that you picked up on it after a week here, that’s more ammunition for me to use to try and convince Ezu.”

“Well it started at the welcome dinner when I realized that Kediac seemed unusually focused on Nakamura…”

It’s several hours later by the time Ash leaves Th’avorak’s quarters, full of some very delicious tea and fully up-to-date on the scuttlebutt. She’d found them entirely on her level when it came to gossip acquisition and distribution -- namely gather as much of it as possible but spread it as little as necessary.

“Susie should be on the mend,” Th’avorak says as she leaves, “but perhaps we should meet again to discuss the workings of the ship.” They smile in a knowing way. “There’s always more tea for you here.”

Ash smiles back, the perfect picture of mischief.

Maybe, just maybe, her luck was turning around.

 

There’s a solid lump of tritanium in Rowan’s stomach as they enter the mess hall for breakfast before shift. Two weeks since Ash transferred on, and they’re still no closer to figuring out any sort of long term solution. And from Th’avorak’s ever more increasingly pointed comments, they’re running out of time before the counselors get pulled into this mess.

Which means that it’s time for a conversation that they really, really aren’t looking forward to.

And for once the universe hasn’t given them an out. Ash is eating alone this morning instead of with one or several of a rotating collection of friends, usually Elliott or Almasi or To or some combination, but occasionally even Lieutenant Kilod, one of the beta shift pilots, or Beta-beta down from engineering. Rowan tries to fight back a wave of jealousy at how quickly Ash makes new friends and almost succeeds.

They pull together every scrap of courage that they have left and approach her table. “Can I join you?”

To Ash’s credit there’s not even a momentary flicker of surprise across her face, but they spent enough years with her to know that means nearly nothing. “Sure.”

“It’s… good to see you again.” Rowan has to stop themself from cringing at the words that come out of their mouth. In a history full of bad lying that might be the worst.

Ash just looks at them, not even pretending to buy it.

“Alright, that was maybe not the best start, but-”

“Rowan,” she cuts them off. “I’m sorry.”

They respond as eloquently as they can. “What?”

“I’m sorry that I… I was running, and once I started I didn’t know how to stop. But I shouldn’t have done what I did, I shouldn’t have treated you the way that I did. I’m sorry.”

Rowan waves her off, smiling a smile that feels as brittle as glass. “It’s fine, it’s fine. We were both young and dumb. No point in dwelling on the mistakes of the past.” It seems ages ago, in another life entirely, and yet right here and now at the same time.

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No, but it’s over now. It happened. We both survived.”

Once again she mercifully doesn’t call them on their lie, and for a moment a pressing, awkward silence descends -- the weight of twelve years that leaves them both without words.

“So,” they try to begin again, “the  _ Sally Ride _ . You spent some time on one of our sister ships.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you there when she experienced the gravitational pull phenomena?”

Ash’s face screws up into a look of annoyances long past. “Yeah, and we were running diagnostics on the transporters for ages.”

“O-oh, yeah, of course, I did hear that was a problem, I’m sure it caused no end of headaches for you, right, ah-”

“Did the  _ Bell _ experience the Pull too?” It’s so clearly a prompt, the way her face smooths and her eyebrows raise, the invitation to say more, to explain, to word vomit science at her the way they spent so many hours as kids.

“Yeah, yeah, just one event, and nowhere near as dramatic as a moon crashing into a planet, in fact Th’avorak missed it entirely, but I caught it when I was going over the data again, the rings on a planet had been shifted out of alignment just a little, just enough that there would be serious meteor showers there for the next hundred years or so as the orbits decay. But I got curious and started looking into other events like it and I found the data from the  _ Sally Ride _ . It’s the strangest thing, and I haven’t heard of any more reports of the phenomena for a while now, but I was trying to work on a theory for why it happened and I think that maybe it wasn’t the gravitational constant that changed but that the Higgs field momentarily increased its interactions with matter…”

Sure, the conversation ends up being a bit one sided as they ramble on about their theories and some of their current research projects, but it’s not unpleasant in the least. In fact, it almost seems…

Normal.

Familiar. 

Rowan turns it over and over in their head as they ride the turbolift down to the lab to start their shift. Almost paradoxically unfamiliar in its familiarity, a dying star trying to restart under the weight of its own gravity, a feeling so firmly left in its past that its unearthing required more than its fair share of awkward dusting and sneezing. It almost starts to make their head hurt, and there’s certainly a subtle ache in their chest that wasn’t there before.

They try to lose themselves in their on-shift duties, but the monotony of the work does them no favors. It’s not until hours later that the release of sleep finally gives them any respite.

 

Ash collapses into the chair in Th’avorak’s quarters with a huff, emotionally exhausted and strung out. The Andorian quietly passes her a cup of tea, but she’s not paying enough attention to what she’s doing and douses herself in the thankfully no longer scalding liquid.

It’s one more thing on top of everything else, and for a moment she wants to scream but bites it back, scrubbing at her face as she stares down at the soggy mess that is now her uniform. “You know, with the day I’ve been having, this seems fitting. At least these uniforms are black.”

Th’avorak has already been up, and sets down a towel and what seems to be a pair of pants on the arm of her chair. “The pants will certainly be too big for you, but it’ll be better than sitting in soggy ones. Unless you just want to go back to your quarters.”

“No, I think I need this.”

Th’avorak politely leaves the sitting room as she changes, leaving her sodden uniform laid out on the floor. The pants are, in fact, huge on her, the legs reaching well past her feet but she’s only going to be sitting so she supposes it’ll be fine. Luckily, her uniform jacket took the brunt of the spill and the undershirt beneath is still mostly dry.

Finally they’re both back to where they started. Th’avorak hands her a fresh cup, although this time they’re much more careful to ensure that she has a hold of it before letting go themself.

“I heard about your conversation with Griffith over breakfast the other day,” they say cautiously, watching her for a reaction.

Ash shuts her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and grounding herself in this moment with the warmth from the tea in her hands. “Yeah, I suppose you would’ve. I usually don’t mind gossip going around, but it’s decidedly less fun when you’re the subject of it.”

“Most people are very curious as to why the two of you seem to know each other so well, but that your relationship has… soured. I’ve heard that you were Academy rivals, that you previously served together but you were promoted and transferred while Griffith was passed over, that you’re secretly related, that your families are in a bitter, generations-long blood feud, that you’re ex-lovers, and all manner of complicated love triangles.”

That gets a snort from her. “Nothing like that. We… knew each other as kids.”

Th’avorak waits, clearly expecting the rest of that explanation, but when none is forthcoming they just nod. “The rumors will die down in time, once Griffith comes to their senses.”

“If they ever do.” Ash lets some of her frustration and bitterness seep into her words. “I thought we were getting somewhere after that conversation two days ago. I apologized, they accepted it. I even got them talking the way we used to, but. Nothing’s changed, nothing’s changed at all. And they haven’t talked to me again since then.”

“There are more drastic measures we could take.” They look her in the eye, entirely serious now. “As Griffith’s commanding officer, I can order them to counseling.”

There’s a long pause as Ash considers this. Part of her desperately wants to say yes, to push this to someone else more trained to handle it, to take some of the weight off her shoulders. But in the end she sighs. “No, it won’t do any good if we force them. Trust me, counseling doesn’t do any good until you want to be there.”

“I know. But there has to be something I can do.”

“You’ve done plenty, ser. This is on me and Rowan now.”

She’s reaching the end of her rope, the last of her tools. But she’s going to fix this.

She has to be able to fix this.


	3. In Which Time Passes, The USS Bell Burnell Reaches Her Destination, and Lieutenant Ash Rosewood, Lieutenant JG Rowan Griffith, and Ensign To Seong-Jin Are Given An Unexpected Job

It’s funny, the way that time works on a starship that regularly travels at or above the speed of light. Rowan knows this firsthand, as one of their regular duties is running checks on the computer systems that calculate time, both inside the ship and outside it, as well as the systems that synchronized the two. It’s often boring, tedious work, checking computer readouts with answers done by hand, but vital to the consistent running of the ship.

But even the most complete theories for the dilation of time couldn’t account for the weirdness of the perception of time to sapient creatures.

It was like it had slowed to a crawl and sped forward at the same time. Going backwards and moving forward in the same instant. 

That was what bridge duty with Ash felt like. Every minute was an hour and every hour was a minute. Years brought them together and years divided them. It was like being thrown into the middle of the ocean after never swimming at all for decades. Terrifying and familiar all at once.

Rowan strangely found themselves missing Prell. Sure, they’d never been anything but friendly coworkers with Prell, but at the same time, they’d only been friendly coworkers. No extra weight. No extra baggage. 

Th’avorak had been spending more time in the labs recently and Nakamura had been spending more time in main engineering, leaving Rowan and Ash up on the bridge more frequently. Rowan couldn’t see it as a coincidence. Sure, the  _ Bell _ wasn’t doing much -- mostly traveling out farther into the Beta Quadrant where she would be spending at least the next few months. But still. Th’avorak and Nakamura had barely been on the bridge at all this past week.

It wasn’t that Rowan wanted to keep things uncomfortable between them and Ash. It was more a case that they never seemed to know what to say around her. And when they did speak, they had a bad tendency to say exactly the wrong thing.

They’re finishing up just another average shift, consolidating what little scanning data there was for quick overview as Lieutenant Pareja comes to take their station. Across the way, Ash is undoubtedly doing something similar for Beta-beta. Rowan stands, stretching, and just happens to catch Ash’s eyes from across the bridge.

“Crickets again, huh, Rosewood.” They’re hardly even thinking when they say it, the first thing that pops to mind and slips out of their mouth.

It’s a mistake.

For a moment, a fraction of a second, Ash freezes. Her eyes widen while the rest of her pleasant working expression stays firmly in place, fingers hovering over the LCARs. And Rowan is just opening their mouth, ready to say something, anything, to try and take back what they said when she snaps out of it, a weak smile as she finishes whatever she was inputting and steps away from the station.

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

No one else seems to notice, the nightly transfer to beta shift finishing smoothly and without comment but there’s a guilty knot in Rowan’s stomach and an ache in the back of their throat. Somehow they still end up in the same turbolift as Ash as alpha shift heads down to the mess hall, although they’ve got no intention of eating with everyone else. But as they peel off to head towards their quarters, Ash steps in front of them, her arms crossed and her gaze steady.

“Ash…” they begin, not sure what they’re going to say, but clearly needing to say something. The moment hangs, thick with tension, as Rowan scrambles for anything.

“You’ve never been nearly as good at hiding your emotions as you think you are.”

“I-”

“You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me. I’ve changed. I’ve apologized. I’m not going to make the same mistake again”

“I never meant to imply that you were, I just-”

“You’re tense all the time, like you’re waiting for something bad to happen. You jump at everything, which you never did before. And you practically refuse to speak to me at all unless you absolutely have to on duty. I’m not a bomb about to go off, Rowan.”

Her words cut them to the bone, so they do the first thing they can think of that seems even halfway right. They step around her and walk off down the hall.

Alone in their room, the night passes slowly, as though they’re outside the ship looking in as she slips between the spaces of the stars  -- moving so quickly that even time itself is left in her wake.

 

Helm is set to take them out of warp soon, but for the moment, Lieutenant Commander Nakamura Ezu can still feel the familiar hum under her feet, a solid 6.9, just under maximum sustainable warp. It’s reminding her of where she would prefer to be, deep in engineering, instead of where she is, which is a morning senior staff meeting that’s becoming less enjoyable by the minute.

At the outset, the mission seemed simple: deliver aid and a load of supplies to a Federation colony on Atania-5 that was experiencing some technological difficulties. Ordinary Starfleet stuff. It wasn’t until they arrived that things got decidedly more complicated.

“The Atania star is currently undergoing a huge, sustained coronal mass ejection,” Th’avorak explains, “which means that ionic interference here is high. Transport and communication to and from the planet will be spotty at best and impossible at worst, and communication outside the system might also be cut off.”

“Is this what was causing the communication problems earlier, then? Just stellar interference that we can’t do anything about?” Elliott asks.

Ezu shakes her head, pulling up the transcriptions they’d received of earlier communications from the colony. “The colony’s head engineer, Nyela Ksentini, said she believed the problem was with the quantum oscillator and its connection to the modulator. That’s a hardware issue, not interference.”

“Is the star of any danger to us?” Parekh asks Th’avorak.

“We’ll need to continue monitoring it, but based on our current data, no. It’s not dying. It’s young, which could be the cause of its instability, but also means that it’s not about to explode on us.”

“Then perhaps the most logical course of action is to wait in orbit for the ionic interference to end,” Kediac suggests.

“We can’t just wait,” Gwyn says. “There’s medical supplies in there, and without communication with the colony there’s no way for us to tell if those are vital supplies or not. And if we don’t know, we need to proceed like they are.”

Elliott cocks his head to the side. “Could we fly a shuttle through it?”

“It’s possible,” Th’avorak says with a slight frown. “Potentially risky, but definitely possible.”

Parekh leans back. “Can we get all the supplies in one shuttle?”

Ezu shakes her head again. She helped secure the mass of supplies in the cargo bay. She’s seen the pile. “No way. With two, maybe.”

“Alright then. Elliott, you fly the  _ Cobalt _ , take Kediac and Nakamura. Ensign To can take Th’avorak and the new engineer, Rosewood, in the  _ De’paul. _ ”

“Captain,” Th’avorak pipes up, “may I suggest Griffith for the away team instead?”

“Why?”

“Truth be told, sir, I don’t fit in shuttles very well. Besides, someone needs to stay here and monitor the star for any unforeseen changes.”

Parekh quirks an eyebrow. “You’re not using a vital away mission for team bonding, are you, commander?”

“No sir, just presenting Griffith as a more logical choice.”

There’s a beat, a pause, as everyone pointedly doesn’t look at Kediac, waiting for him to weigh in on the logic of the situation. But he stays strangely silent.

“Fine. Griffith it is, then.” Parekh taps her com badge. “Rosewood, Griffith, and To, report to the conference room as soon as possible.”

Ezu looks over the three of them as they arrive, one by one. Rosewood shows up first, followed by To, and Griffith last. There’s an air of anxiety over all of them on being called to a briefing, but it clearly weighs heaviest on To and Griffith. And the ongoing hostility between Rosewood and Griffith is obvious as they stand as far away from her as they can possibly get away with without anyone asking questions.

The others are quickly brought up to speed on their assignment. Rosewood looks like she’s already calculating possible solutions to altering the colony’s communications array to get through the interference. Ezu will need to find time to talk to her before they leave.

Griffith is very quiet. It could just be the early hour. But it could be something else.

Parekh dismisses them to start loading the shuttles. Despite the reassurance that the ship was in no danger, it’s clear that she wants to be in and out as quickly as possible.

On the way out of the meeting room, Ezu grabs Th’avorak, pulling them off to the side. “You’re using this as team bonding, aren’t you.”

“It’s been three weeks, Ezu. If I have to throw the two of them into a shuttle together to get them to work out whatever is between them, then I will.”

She grins. “You’re a devious schemer.”

Ryhleth grins back. “Always.”


	4. In Which An Awkward Shuttle Ride Becomes Far Worse and Odds Of Survivability Are Called Into Question

People didn’t usually expect an engineer to be very good at social situations. It isn’t perhaps the most flattering of stereotypes, but Ash has been around enough engineers to know that it has a basis in truth.

She, however, is an expert.

A consequence of the life that she had lived, it isn’t always the best thing. But she knew people and she knew how to read people.

It didn’t take an expert to tell that this is an uncomfortable situation.

No, the thing making everyone uncomfortable is Rowan. If they speak at all, it seems to be directed towards To and not her, despite the fact that all three of them are currently sharing the same tiny space. Mostly they’re silent, watching the sensors and drumming their fingers against the chair. Their anxiety is practically palpable, a frustrating itch under her skin. 

She had apologized. They had said everything was fine. But their repeated behavior made it beyond clear that something was still wrong between the two of them. She just didn’t know how to fix it. Something was broken and she didn’t know how to fix it and that was annoying.

“Approaching atmosphere,” To says. “If things are going to get bumpy, it’s going to be soon.”

Rowan’s fingers dart across the LCARs, taking readings and trying to push the sensors to the limit. “Ionic interference is currently at manageable level for our shields, but there’s no way we’re getting good sensor readings of the planet until we break through.”

“Doesn’t seem like the best place for a colony,” To remarks as Atania-5 begins to come into visual range. The planet is primarily a dusty brown, barely tipping its way into Class L with a breathable atmosphere, but most of its water is locked underground, leaving vast stretches of its surface as barren desert.

“There are definitely worse places,” Ash remarks. “They could be terraforming.” Terraforming a frozen planet with gaseous life forms in the middle of nowhere, Klingon territory.

“ _ Cobalt _ to  _ De’paul _ ,” Elliott’s voice comes through the comms. “We’re entering the atmosphere. Communications should cut ou-” The transmission cuts off into static.

“Alright then.” To angles the nose of the shuttle towards the planet. “Everyone hold tight, we’re going in, too.”

The deep black of space outside the viewscreen is quickly replaced by the swirling whites and browns of Atania-5, overlaid by shifting patterns of luminescent greens and blues, planet-spanning auroras marking the current influx of solar ionization. Rowan had rambled about it earlier. It was pretty, if only it didn’t have to fry everything.

The relative peace in the tiny cabin is suddenly shattered as Rowan shouts, “Abort, ionic interference spiking, our shields aren’t going to be able to handle it!”

As if on cue, all the lights in the shuttle flicker and everything shudders. To swears a string of curses, fingers flying and for a moment the shuttle jerks upwards as the reverse thrusters fire at full blast.

But only for a moment. The lights flicker and flicker and shut off, and as the cabin falls into a dim twilight lit only by reflection from the planet below, there’s a noticeable dip as the unpowered craft begins to fall towards the surface.

They’re falling.

They’re crashing.

“To, status!” Ash calls.

“No idea, lieutenant, everything’s dead! And we will be too unless we do something fast!”

For one moment, paralyzing fear pushes at the edge of Ash’s mind, but then her hours on hours of emergency training kicks in and every emotion falls away in the utter certainty of what she has to do. 

Step number one: they need shields up or they’ll burn passing through the atmosphere.

Shoving herself up from her seat, Ash clambers into the back, pulling open panels to reveal dead wiring and dark lights.

“To, I’m going to need manual override on all systems and then see if you can get inertial dampeners running, anything will help. Griffith, get back here, I need a second set of hands.”

Everything was still connected and theoretically should be working, it was just off. Which means to get it working again, Ash needed to jumpstart it. And the only available power sources she has are her phaser and her tricorder. Phaser is more powerful, tricorder is easier to work with.

She picks the tricorder.

Griffith follows all her instructions, holding wires, unplugging, replugging, flipping switches, all without saying a word.

Before long the shuttle begins to shake violently, battered by friction as it enters the atmosphere. Temperatures skyrocket as fire licks along the hull. Ash grits her teeth, trying to focus on the problem in front of her. They have minutes, at best.

With an electric crackling and a whining hum the shield generator stumbles back online, the flames outside burning themselves out in seconds. But with their disappearance the view outside is once again visible, a barren landscape of twisted rock spires, plateaus dropping into dark, vertical canyons.

Their crash site.

Ash doesn’t so much run to the control panel as let herself slide forward, the shuttle having tipped to near vertical at this point. To did good work, but he was a pilot, not an engineer.

Not fast enough.

“To, Griffith, strap in, there isn’t anything more you can do.”

“Ash-”

“Strap in!”

Minimal power would be enough, something, anything. In a last desperate attempt, she shoves her phaser into the circuit, wires it in as best she can, and pulls the trigger.

The shuttle rocks violently, everything blurring as for a moment Ash feels herself go airborne before slamming bodily into something decidedly softer than a shuttle bulkhead.

Griffith drops her into the copilot’s seat before stumbling to a seat farther back. To is once again fighting with the controls, but outside the ground is racing towards them.

There just isn’t time.

“Brace for impact!”

And then the world erupts into chaos.

Every conceivable thought, every possible emotion is lost in a tearing, groaning, sparking, wrenching, shattering, crashing tidal wave of mayhem and there isn’t anything to do but hold on and hope it ends.

It’s a little bit of a mercy when it all slips into darkness.

 

There’s a thudding in Rowan’s head when they come to, a pounding of blood that they can feel down to their teeth. They groan, hands coming up to grab their temples. Everything aches, like the unholy combination of getting their ass absolutely handed to them in a combat simulation and the world’s worst hangover.

And then memory crashes back and they pry their eyes open to find themselves staring at the wreck of a shuttle.

The floor is buckled and warped. Side panels are missing and bits of sunlight peek through the walls. There’s cargo scattered everywhere, and Rowan realizes it was probably sheer dumb luck that kept them from getting hit.

“Fuck,” they mutter, fingers struggling with the releases on their restraints. Even once they’re free, the shuttle is tilted, nose down and listing sideways, and it’s an ungraceful stumble and slide forward to the controls.

The front window is a spider web of cracks, the console is blackened and burned. The acrid scent claws its way into Rowan’s brain. Their breath catches, the pulse inside their head skyrocketing. 

Ash and To are both still unconscious, slumped in their chairs. Miraculously, Ash seemed to have escaped any injury from the destruction of the console, although there’s a noticeable dark wet patch on the back of her head. To wasn’t so lucky, his uniform crumbling to ash in places, bright red burn marks visible through the emerging holes.

Bile rises in the back of Rowan’s throat, their hands shaking so badly as they pull out their tricorder that they have to attempt the scan twice before it gives them back anything at all. The data is poor, anything living was never their forte anyway, but there’s one thing there, the only thing that matters.

Life signs.

Ash and To are alive.

“Ash? C’mon, Ash, please wake up.” They shake her shoulder, anxiety pooling in their stomach as her head wobbles lifelessly. “C’mon, you have to be okay, you have to be. You saved us, you have to be okay.”

There’s no response.

Rowan scrambles back up the broken incline of the floor to the compartment where the emergency supplies are kept. The panel pops free and then they’re sliding down again, hypospray in hand. With a click and a hiss it’s administered, and the effect is almost immediate. Ash groans, brow furrowing and eyelids flickering.

“Ash? You back with me?”

“Ow,” she grumbles, her eyes opening. “What happened?” 

“The shuttle crashed. I think you got hit in the head with, uh, something.”

Ash reaches back to touch the bloody spot at the back of her head, her face going a shade paler when her fingers come back smeared with crimson.

Rowan suddenly remembers vibrantly, perfectly, the first time they ever saw a person pass out. And that it was Ash when they had slid out of a tree they were trying to climb and scraped off half the skin on their leg.

Ash hurriedly scrubs her hand on her pant leg. “I’m so glad these uniforms are black.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like my head hurts and everything’s still moving and I might throw up. How’s To?” She squints at him before making a pained noise and a deep breath. “Is he even still alive?” Her eyes are unfocused, her movements to unbuckle herself uncoordinated and clumsy. Definitely a concussion.

“Yeah, I already scanned him.” A second hypospray, although this one doesn’t have quite the same effect. To moans once, low and soft, but doesn’t wake up. Something inside Rowan twists further.

“He’s going to need something a lot more than a hypo.” Ash stumbles upright, falling into Rowan who barely manages to keep both of them on their feet. “Rosewood to  _ Sally Ride _ , wait, no, Rosewood to _ Bell Burnell _ , we crashed and it’s bad.  _ Bell Burnell _ ?”

There’s no answer except the dead chirp of a communicator without a connection.

“Griffith to Commander Kediac.” They’re trying very hard to keep the quiver out of their voice and it might almost be working.

Nothing. No signal.

“Griffith to Nakamura.”

Still nothing.

“Elliott?”

Nothing.

“Looks like we might be on our own,” they say to Ash. Crash landed who knows how far from the only settlement on a lifeless world with no contact with their ship or the rest of the away team, one crew member unconscious and the other concussed. It certainly wasn’t what Rowan had expected to happen when they woke up this morning.

Ash nods. “Maybe they all crashed too except they’re dead and it’s just us and we’re stuck down here and I’ll have to build the shuttle into our house where we scavenge off the land to survive until we all die alone and forgotten of preventable diseases.”

Apparently head trauma disabled all of Ash’s social filters so she just said whatever it was she was thinking. It might be hilarious if the situation wasn’t what it is.

“We’re not going to be forgotten. The  _ Bell _ is still in orbit, we just need to make contact.”

Ash fixes them with a stare that says she currently thinks they’re the dumbest lifeform she’s had the displeasure of meeting. “How are we supposed to do that with no communications.”

“I don’t know, you’re the engineer!”

“Oh. Right!” Without another word or another glance in their direction, she staggers towards the ruined console, nearly falling head first into it before managing to lower herself to the ground and shove her head into its charred innards. A distant part of Rowan is skeptical that there’s anything of use left in there, but for the moment they have more pressing concerns.

The temperature inside the shuttle is already climbing rapidly. Without life support, it’s essentially a big, metal oven and it will cook them all unless Rowan does something. Which means that they’re going to need shelter. If they were doing this all properly, they’d wait until early morning in order to reduce sweating and heat exhaustion, but they have a sinking feeling that waiting wouldn’t be in their favor.

So, squinting as they step from the dim interior of the shuttle to the sunlit world outside, Rowan gets their first good look at Atania-5. If the situation was different, they might be tempted to call it beautiful, in the way that parts of the American West are beautiful. The landscape is sand and barren rock in every direction, carved and sculpted by erosion into tall, delicate columns, deep, shadowy canyons, and twisting, dune-covered plateaus. The shuttle itself is half buried nose down in the middle of a sand crater, blasted pieces of wreckage scattered around it.

The emergency packs in the shuttle supply them with a small hand shovel and a length of tarp. Not the most ideal, but enough for them to make some kind of shelter. Picking a spot a reasonable distance away from the crash, they start digging.

There’s a series of noises from inside the shuttle, something that might have been a yelp followed by a scraping clatter.

“You find anything, Ash?” they call.

“Shouldn’t it be Rosewood?” comes the eventual distant reply. “We are technically working.”

“Extreme circumstances, I think. Anyway, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… need to sit down for a second.”

There’s mostly quiet from Ash after that, and for a long time under the blazing Atania sun, there’s nothing for Rowan but the sound of their shovel against the sand as they try desperately to keep their thoughts focused here and now on surviving and not the uncertain future or the dangerous past.


	5. In Which A Decision, Wise Or Not, Is Made, Odds Of Survivability Plummet, and Desperate Action Must Be Taken

Ezu is elbows deep in the receiving coils of the colony’s communications array when Kediac walks in, his characteristically blank face giving no hint as to the nature of the news he bares. She extracts herself from the guts of the system as he approaches, as next to her Nyela Ksentini dives in deeper.

“Please tell me you have good news.”

The  _ Cobalt’s _ landing on Atania-5 had been a bit bumpy, with power flickering as they passed through the upper atmosphere, but it wasn’t until they had landed at the colony that they had realized just how bad things were. Despite the  _ De’paul _ entering atmo right behind them, there was no sign of it, and repeated attempts to com the rest of the away team had only ended in dead lines and static. Ezu didn’t want to assume the worst, but with every passing hour it was becoming harder and harder to remain hopeful.

He offers a hand to help her to her feet, which she accepts. “While much of the technology in the research station is nonfunctional due to the ionic storms, including their sensors, a small seismograph, typically used in the detection of earthquakes and rockfalls, did record an event dissimilar to an earthquake but similar to a rockfall not long before our arrival. It could be a statistical coincidence, but it may also be a recording of the  _ De’paul _ crashing.”

“Where is it? Is it anywhere close?”

“As we only have one device, we cannot triangulate the location of the event, but assuming for a moment that it was the  _ De’paul _ , calculations place it in a forty kilometer radius some eight thousand kilometers southeast.”

Ezu feels her heart seize, and she mentally recites a prayer to the Prophets for the safety of her companions. “We have to go look for them.”

It’s the tiniest twitch, but Ezu has spent enough time around Kediac to recognize, just for a second, the regret that flickers across his features. “The colony has no craft that could travel that distance, and it would be unwise to attempt to fly the  _ Cobalt _ . The most logical plan continues to be fixing communications to make contact with the  _ Bell Burnell _ .” 

“Right, right.” She turns back to the current disarray that has taken over the small communications room. She needs more hands, more help. Ksentini is good, very good, but with what they’re attempting…

She needs Rosewood. Less than a month and she’s already leaning heavily on her new second.

She needs time. Time that Rosewood, Griffith, and To may not have.

She needs a miracle.

_ Prophets guide me, I need a miracle. _

 

Three hours into survival on Atania-5 and Rowan is swearing personal, bloody revenge on every rock and grain of sand in the universe and the very forces of erosion themselves. The shelter is built, a hole in the ground big enough to lie in with the tarp looped around and supported by some rocks they scavenged to both line the pit and provide shade. They even managed to move To inside, although he still showed no sign of regaining consciousness.

But Ash then stubbornly refused to stop working on her attempts to salvage something of the shuttle’s communication system until after the sun went down, convinced she was on the verge of finally figuring something out. Nothing Rowan said could convince her, so they ended up building a second, larger shelter for Ash to work in and helping her move all the junk she’d gathered into it. They have no idea what she’s doing, and if her occasional mutterings are anything to go by, she doesn’t either.

Rowan is hot, tired, achey, sweaty, dirty, terrified, and miserable.

“This is the worst,” Ash proclaims as she flops to the ground inside after carrying over the last lump of melted wiring. “Okay, this is maybe not the worst but it’s definitely worse than the time bubble!”

“It’s definitely up there with very bad things.” Rowan drops the bundle of food and water they had gathered with a thud. Uselessly they try to scrub off some of the sand that clung to their hands and arms. They need to start making more long term plans. If the three of them are stranded here for any extended period of time, water is going to start becoming extremely precious, and conservation one of their top priorities. They could save plenty by sleeping in the shade during the day and only working at night, but even that will only keep them for so long. Th’avorak had been uncertain how long the extreme solar winds would last, meaning they had no time frame for rescue. And To… Rowan was no doctor but the fact he still hadn’t woken up is certainly very bad news. He needs medical assistance soon, something much more than they would be able to give. That... or soon enough, they’re going to be digging again.

Rowan’s head is spinning, the calculated odds of survival dropping lower and lower with every passing minute. This is certainly not how they expected to die -- slowly dehydrating stranded on a vaguely inhabited planet.

The small, soft puff of something landing in the sand snaps them out of their morbid train of thought, and they whirl around only to find that Ash is throwing small chunks of metal at them. Or at least attempting to throw small chunks of metal at them and missing entirely.

“Drink.” She shoves one of the flasks towards them. “You are a warp core and your insides need dilithium. Except it’s water. Water is your dilithium.”

With a huff Rowan settles down across from her in the shelter, scooping up the flask. “We really need to start conserving this.”   
“Conserving is useless if you’re already dead.”

For a moment the only sound is the echoing of their breathing in the small space, small shifts against the tarp amplified by the tight quarters and the sand beneath until-

“Why are you still mad at me?” Ash asks.

“I’m not still mad at you,” Rowan says with a sigh, letting their head fall to rest against their knees.

“You are. You act weird around me. You just completely walked off the other day when I tried to talk to you about it. First of all, it was very rude and second, why?”

“I’m not still mad at you,” they repeat, “I just… I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.”

“What I know is that we used to be friends and then I messed up and then I apologized but we’re still not… Well we shouldn’t be warp nine friends like we used be because we fell out of warp so now we’re at, like, warp one but we should definitely be going faster than that. Our friendship acceleration has not been optimized! And I can’t run a diagnostic unless you talk to me!” She’s impassionately waving her hands around by the end of her awkward speech before she suddenly deflates. “I just want you to talk to me.”

The ache in Rowan’s chest suddenly doesn’t have anything to do with anxiety. “I… didn’t realize that was something you wanted.” 

“You’re my friend, Rowan, of course that’s something I wanted.”

Once again they find themself entirely, wholly without words. Only this time, they can’t run.

 

Like any good desert, the temperature dropped quickly once the sun started setting, and by early twilight it’s almost comfortable in the shade. Unfortunately, by that time there isn’t anything left that Rowan can do, and they end up laying in Ash’s work tent, staring up at the tarp overhead and occasionally trying to scan for life forms on the stupid but desperate hope that the rest of the away team would find them. Ash had kept up a near constant stream of chatter, but most of it was complete nonsense, either technobabble that even with Rowan’s limited knowledge of engineering they weren’t sure was correct or out of context and out of order stories from her time serving on the  _ Sally Ride _ . If it was possible for Ash to act any less like the Ash that Rowan knew, they aren’t sure how.

The sun had fully set into full astronomical night and Rowan had moved outside to stare at the auroras overhead when Ash decided that she needed yet more pieces from the shuttle to get communications running and wandered back over with a headlamp. For once her stubbornness was actually helping in that she hadn’t tried to sleep yet. In her current state, Rowan didn’t feel comfortable letting her sleep, afraid that if she did she wouldn’t wake up, although she did seem to be slowly shaking off the worst of the concussion.

They’d almost determined the direction they believe the colony to be in, judging by the relative positions of the stars and the shuttle crash when the silence of the night is split by a long, drawn out “Roooowaaaan!”

With a sigh Rowan climbs to their feet and switches on their head light. For fuck’s sake, if she’d done something stupid while they weren’t looking...

“Rowan!”

“I’m coming!”

They round the corner to the backside of the shuttle, only to find their light catching on something other than the same brownish, greyish, reddish stretches of sand they’ve been seeing for hours.

Green.

Pulling itself out of the sand in front of Ash is some sort of plant creature, its skin knobby and waxy looking like a cactus. Its main body was small and dome shaped, maybe a quarter of a meter tall, but it connected a number of long tendrils each as big around as a human leg and several meters long. Even as Rowan watches it rises above Ash’s head, swaying slightly in the shifting sands. No visible optical or other sense organs, but from the way it was moving it clearly had some level of intelligence.

And then as they look up their light illuminates something else.

More tendrils, held above its main body. Poised to strike.

Not at them, still some distance away, but at Ash, who’s stumbling backwards, saying under her breath, “Nope, nope, nope, nope.”

There’s no time for thought, no time for any logical decision. There’s only instinct, the base drives of sapient life.

Drawing their phaser, firing wide in an attempt to scare it off, Rowan throws themself between Ash and the creature.

Something hard slams into them, knocking the breath out of their lungs. Their legs give way underneath them, leaving them hunched over on the ground. They can hear the creature retreating, the sliding rasp as it pulls itself away across the sand, but it seems distant and muted.

And then Rowan happens to glance down and notice the half meter long thorn embedded in their side. The light blue of their uniform undershirt is already starting to stain deep red around the wound.

Their first fully formed thought has nothing to do with themself. “Ash,” they gasp, “don’t look. Look away.” They can’t have her passing out, not now.

Then the pain hits.

“Oh no, oh no this is bad, this is bad, what am I supposed to do,” they hear Ash saying, and that too seems far away, removed from the very immediate burning, ripping, aching pain in their side. With shaking hands they press against the wound, trying to stabilize the thorn and slow the blood flow, but crimson pushes between their fingers, glistening where the light hits it.

There are hands on their shoulders, under their shoulders, Ash trying to pull them away. “The rock octopus… rocktopus, it might come back, we need to get away, just a little ways away.”

“Don’t you dare pass out,” they say.

“Trust me, I’m not looking.”

Within a few minutes there’s something solid and warm against their back, the side of the  _ De’paul _ . Ash props them up before retreating a little ways away, positioning herself so she can see them without seeing the blood.

“Burned, concussed, and stabbed, what a good away team we are.” Rowan tries to smile a bit, but it’s half hearted at best.

Atania-5 just became their grave.

 

The night crawls on, the vast auroras overhead washing the landscape in unearthly faint greens and blues. The stars are only visible in patches, but Rowan finds themself searching for any glimpse of them, wondering if the  _ Bell _ was included there with them, orbiting the planet and waiting for the return of a shuttle that wasn’t coming.

They managed to dress the wound as best they could given that there was no safe way to remove the thorn. The pain in their side had dulled to a painful ache, skin and muscle grating against the thorn with every breath, something that was becoming more difficult as time went on. It felt like there was a weight on their chest, stopping them from drawing a full breath. A clammy shiver lays over their skin, the only warmth they have from the trickles of blood that have soaked through their makeshift dressing.

They’re no medical professional, but they’re not dumb. They know what this means.

Ash had hovered, switching between working on their engineering problem and watching them, always careful not to look at anything that would make her pass out, but trying to keep an eye on them nonetheless. But mostly she’s working, trying to cobble together what scraps she had to get all of them a way out.

A wave of fondness washes over Rowan as they watch her, even injured and uncertain, doing what it is she does best. Starfleet should be proud to have her. And they had certainly been proud to be her friend.

“Crickets,” they murmur, just loud enough that Ash stops what she’s doing to look up at them.

“What did you say?”

“Crickets, Ash.”

“No!” she shouts, “There’s no crickets here. It’s an alien planet. No crickets.”

“No crickets on the bridge, either. And yet, crickets.”

“Crickets meant that I had to leave, though. Not you.” She seems near desperate to prove them wrong, as if doing so will force them to stay alive. As if she can reason their heart to keep breathing.

“Well I’m pretty sure that once this night is over, you’ll be going somewhere that I won’t be able to follow.”

At that she angrily stumbles upright, managing to close the few steps between them before falling to her knees. “No,” she repeats, grabbing their shoulder and shaking them. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re both getting out of here and we’re both getting to medbay and you’re going to be fine and we’ll be friends again.”

Rowan tries to smile, tries to reassure but they know there’s nothing they can do to make this any better. Carefully they wipe one hand clean on their pant leg before reaching up and unfastening their insignia.

“What are you doing?” She tries to stop them, but only manages to smack their arm.

Grabbing her hand by the wrist, Rowan presses the symbol of their service in Starfleet into her palm. “Don’t forget me, alright?”

“Shut the fuck up!” she yells.

“...Lieutenant Rosewood?” comes the voice of Commander Kediac from the badge.

 

Ryhleth stands behind Lieutenant Kilod at the coms station, a white knuckled grip on their cane. Parekh stands at their shoulder, steel in her spine and her hands tucked behind her back. They’ve both been there since Nakamura managed to get a static-filled message to them twenty five minutes ago, informing them of the current status of the away mission and most importantly, the unknown fate of half of the team. Since then Biceh and C’Tiri, working with Nakamura, had been trying to establish contact by bouncing signals through the much more powerful systems on the Bell.

And the first communication they got was Rosewood furious and cursing. 

Ryhleth is still getting to know the new engineer, and it seems the more they learn the more questions there are, but to hear her like this stiffens their antenna. 

“Rosewood,” the captain cuts in, “report on the status of the  _ De’paul  _ and the officers aboard.”

“Captain,” Rosewood chokes, “uh, well, we crashed, and-”

Griffith cuts in, although their voice seems strained and quiet. “There was a spike of ionic interference as we entered atmosphere, sir, that shut down shuttle systems. Rosewood made sure that we didn’t die, but the  _ De’paul _ is in pieces. Rosewood has head trauma from the crash, To got… got caught by the console exploding. He’s still alive but hasn’t woken up since we crashed.”

“You don’t sound so great yourself, Griffith.” The concern in Nakamura’s voice is palpable and shared.

“Griffith has been, uh, mmm, ah-” Rosewood tries.

“I believe the medically correct term is impaled,” they finish.

“There’s a lot of blood,” Rosewood mumbles.

Parekh’s expression impossibly hardens more. “How much is a lot?”

“Sir, with all due respect,” Griffith responds, “unless you can get transporters up in the next half hour I don’t think I’m going to see the inside of the  _ Bell _ alive again.”

Ryhleth goes cold, and suddenly, stupidly, they find themself missing the weight of the ushaan-tor at their waist. As if a blade would be of any use in this situation.

“Don’t say that!” Rosewood hisses.

They’re hardly even aware of what they’re doing until they’ve already done it, leaning over the station and halfway shoving Kilod out of the way.

“Lieutenant Griffith.”

“Aye, ser,” comes the weak response.

“You’re not allowed to pass out. Do you understand me? That’s a direct order from your superior.”

“I’ll try, ser.”

“You better damn well make sure of it.”

Parekh’s hand on their shoulder draws them back. “If we’re going to transport through the ion storm, we’re going to need as clear of a window as we can get.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Start scanning.”

 

_ Unless you can get transporters up in the next half hour I don’t think I’m going to see the inside of the  _ Bell _ alive again. _

The sentence rebounds and rebounds through Ezu’s head, Griffith speaking their own death sentence, knowing that it’s her duty to stop it.

Except she’s stuck on a planet where she can’t do anything about it.

Back and forth she paces in the colony’s tiny communications room, desperate to be back on the  _ Bell _ , deep in the transporters, doing the thing she’s on a starship to do. But all she has now are her words.

“You’re going to need to simultaneously boost the signal and filter out the noise from the ion interference,” she tells Beta-beta over coms. “A variable polarizer with the internal inverters might work if you can getting it to link with sensor data. And the capacitance field will need to be altered to accommodate larger amplitudes without overloading the subconsole.”

Her heart is in her throat, each beats a mark of the seconds slipping away, each beat one more that Griffith’s heart might not have.

“It’s still too weak a signal, I can’t get a lock.”

“Take whatever power you need to boost the targeting scanner, if you have to take the warp core offline then do it, we can fix it later.”

Her ship would be a mess when she got back to it. But it didn’t matter, as long as everyone else got back to it, too.

 

Ash had been through quite a number of very bad things. Even after joining Starfleet, she’d seen crew members die, she’d been in battle, her family thought she was dead for a year and a half. There was some not great stuff buried in her history.

But this away mission had rather quickly jumped from among the worst to arguably the worst.

The worst part of it was she couldn’t do anything. Rowan was dying right in front of her and she couldn’t do anything. There was engineering that needed to be done to save them, and she still couldn’t do anything.

She was an engineer. She fixed things.

She couldn’t fix this.

Rowan’s head was tipped back against the shuttle, their eyes closed, their breathing shallow and almost unnoticeable. 

They almost already looked dead.

With a huff Ash shakes the thought from her mind and nudges them with her foot. “Hey, Rowan. Why are the auroras green.”

One of their eyes lazily drifts open. “Hmm?”

“Why are the auroras green. Th’avorak ordered you to not pass out, I’m trying to help. Talk some science at me and stay awake.”

“What did you ask?” Their voice is quiet, words coming in little breaths and gasps.

“Auroras. Why are they green.”

“Mmm. Oxygen. Oxygen gives off green electrons. Nitrogen makes… red? Purple? Unless it’s lonely and then blue. And then everything goes blue when we go fast.”

Her head hurts. She wants to sleep, she desperately wants to sleep but she can’t. 

She wants out of here. She wants to be back on the  _ Ride _ … the  _ Bell _ .

She wants Rowan to be okay.

Her head hurts.

“You’re not allowed to die, okay? We just got things figured out, we just agreed to be friends again. So. You can’t die now. I don’t want to… have to deal with you being dead. I just figured things out. Things are good. So. You have to be okay. Even if you’re really, really dumb and run at the rocktopodes instead of away. You can learn not to run at rocktopodes, but not if you’re dead.”

“Stand by for beam out,” Rowan’s com in her hand says.

Hurriedly, she shoves it back on them. Some distant, logical part of her is scared. They didn’t beam in for a reason, that reason being it was dangerous and risky. Transporter accidents could turn people into piles of goop if any variable was just a little off. They could all die just trying to be rescued.

There’s a hum, a curtain of blue light that slides across her vision and then-

-recedes, and there’s no longer cold sand underneath her but the cold metallic of the transport pad. Everything is much brighter too, and as soon as the transport finishes, noiser. A small swarm of people descends on the three of them all dressed in medical blues, hands reaching for To and Rowan. Ash gets one last glimpse at Rowan as they’re whisked away, their entire right side soaked in bright crimson blood and then a wave of lightheadedness washes over her and everything goes dark.


	6. In Which Recoveries Begin And Some Fully Conscious Conversations Are Had

The first thing that Rowan is aware of is that they’re lying down. For a moment they’re about to sink back into sleep, but something is gnawing at the back of their mind. Something they’re supposed to do.

The second thing they’re aware of is a deep, persistent ache over their whole body. It’s not painful, but it’s certainly uncomfortable, and slowly it prompts them to open their eyes.

There’s a white ceiling overhead, dimly lit. Slowly, details from earlier are beginning to filter back: the crash, Atania-5, running to save Ash, and for a moment Rowan wonders if maybe they’re dead and this is some sort of afterlife. 

They didn’t expect things to still hurt in the afterlife, but then again they didn’t expect an afterlife at all, so what do they know.

“So you’re finally awake, idiot.”

They turn their head to find Ash sitting on a bed next to them.

“Okay,” Rowan says, “so I don’t think we are, but just to be clear, are we dead?” Their voice is rough and scratchy, like it’s been out of use for some time.

“Nope. We’re in medbay, and that’s where you’re going to be for a while because you were stupid enough to get right up in front of an unknown lifeform that then stabbed you.” She leans forward to emphasis the last point, an unexpected fire flickering in her eyes.

_ I saved you, and that’s what matters. _ The words linger on Rowan’s tongue, but they don’t say them. “How are you feeling?” they ask instead.

“I believe that’s what I’m supposed to be asking you.” Dr. Gwyn approaches, PADD in hand. “You suffered severe internal trauma and blood loss. A few more minutes and we might have lost you.”

_ I wasn’t exactly expecting to survive. _ “I’m achy and tired but outside of that okay.”

Gwyn nods, taking notes. “You’re going to need to stay here for the next week for regeneration treatments and rest, then barring any further complications a week of bedrest and two further weeks off duty before you can get back to work.”

“I’m off duty for a whole month?” they ask, incredulous.

“Maybe don’t get stabbed if you want to work,” Ash responds.

Gwyn’s eyes slide to her, but he doesn’t say anything about her comment. “I’ll give you a few minutes to finish waking up before I run some tests. The captain will also want to debrief you before the end of alpha shift. Rosewood, you’re free to leave.” With that, he walks off, back to his office.

Ash is still staring at them, looking for something, although Rowan has no idea what she could be finding.

“How long was I out?” they eventually settle on asking.

“They kept you under for about twelve hours once we got back on board.”

“And To?”

Ash gestures to the bed on the other side of them, where To is currently sleeping, his skin pink along his arms and chest from healing burns. He might scar, but he’ll definitely live.

“I’m assuming they got the transporters running.”

“Yeah, and it’s going to be a pain in the butt to get them working normally again.”

“At least you’re alive to fix them.”

“No, dang it, Rowan!” Ash slaps her hands down against the bed, shoving herself up to stand over them. “You don’t get to say that everything is okay now just because we got lucky! You almost died! By all accounts you should’ve died! Why don’t you care about that?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to promise that you’re not going to be so massively, monumentally dumb again!”

“No.” They push themself up, struggling to a sitting position. “I did what I did to save your life, and I’m not going to take back the oath I took on joining Starfleet to look out for my fellow officers just because you’re uncomfortable with the fact that sometimes people die doing our jobs.”

“There’s a difference between accepting that our work is dangerous and running face first into danger!”

“I don’t see one.”

Ash turns away with a noise of frustration and disgust. “Fine. I hope you enjoy doing nothing for a month as consequence.” With that she stalks out of the medbay, the door hissing closed behind her.

Only to open again a moment later as Th’avorak walks through, the subtle and measured thump of their cane against the floor as they approach. They nod to Gwyn, who waves them through without a word.

“I passed Lieutenant Rosewood in the hall,” they say as they come up next to Rowan’s bedside. “She seemed quite upset.”

Rowan shrugs, trying to hide the lingering sting of Ash’s anger. “She’s mad that I almost died.”

“You didn’t almost die, Griffith.” Th’avorak’s antenna are curled backwards in concern. “You did die, medically. Your heart stopped beating for almost two minutes.”

“Oh.”

“Although Rosewood doesn’t know, as she was still unconscious at that time.”

“Oh.”

Th’avorak sighs. “You scared all of us. No one here is ready to deal with another loss.”

The sudden wave of guilt that hits them feels enough to drown in, and Rowan turns their face away as something hot burns in the back of their eyes and they try to swallow past the lump in their throat.

A hand comes to rest on their shoulder, carefully guiding them to lay back down. “You’re alive, lieutenant. In the end, that’s what matters. Ash will remember that soon. Now rest. You need it.”

“Thank you, ser.”

“Of course.”

 

Despite Th’avorak’s reassurances, Rowan doesn’t see Ash for the rest of the week that they’re in medbay, although they do spend a lot of time sleeping off the effects of tissue regeneration. At the end of the week and after one final battery of tests, Dr. Gwyn releases them under the strict orders that they remind on bedrest in their quarters for the next week.

Rowan nods, says all the necessary ‘yes sir’s, and has exactly zero intention of following through with those orders. They feel fine, just a bit sore, and they desperately want the data on the Atania star that had been throwing off all that solar wind. With a bit of luck and some mathematical models, they might be able to predict when another ion storm of that magnitude would hit, saving the colony some undue stress.

Which is how they end up in the hallway outside the Advanced Research Lab during alpha shift, trying their best to stay out of the way and unnoticed.

The hall is as empty as they assumed it would be. With Rowan on medical leave, Th’avorak should be on the bridge and not down here, and they and Th’avorak were the ones that frequented the lab most often. Besides, this was a simple mission. Get in, get some data downloaded on a PADD, get out and back to their room where they could study in peace.

They slide down the hallway as quickly as their aching and stiff body will allow them, type in the code on the wall panel, slip through the opening door-

And come face to face with Ensign Unixe and Ensign Lurral, looking up from computer screens to stare at them.

“Lieutenant!” Unixe says, dark Betazoid eyes boring into them, “I thought you were still off duty.”

Rowan tries for a reassuring smile, although they’re not sure it succeeds. “I am, but Th’avorak asked me to look into the readings from Atania so I came down to grab some PADDs.”

Lurral raises one Vulcan eyebrow at them. “The lieutenant commander did not inform us that you would be requiring the Atania readings.”

“I’m sure it just slipped their mind.” Rowan is hardly even looking at what data they’re grabbing at this point. They can sort through everything later, right now they just want it.

“That does not sound like something the lieutenant commander would do.”

“Yeah, well, us emotional beings can be a bit of a bitch like that sometimes.” They’ve secured a whole stack of loaded PADDs, shoving them into their arms with a “thanks, bye!” and slipping back out into the hall.

Safely sequestered back in their quarters, Rowan collapses back into bed with a groan, their body protesting even the short walk. But they have data now, and work that they can do. That makes it all worth it.

 

With a faint chime, the alert at Rowan’s quarters goes off. Ash waits for a response, outwardly calm but inwardly fuming. Of all the stupid, idiotic, irresponsible things to do-

“Come in!” Rowan calls. 

The door slides open and she walks in.

At least Rowan is currently in bed like they’re supposed to be, propped up against a small mountain of pillows. And at least they have the sense to look a little guilty as they smooth the covers over what is clearly a PADD tucked underneath. Mostly, however, they just look tired. Dark smudges under their eyes stand out against skin that’s still a shade or two paler than it should be.

And maybe Ash is just imagining it, but there’s a bit of fear there too as she enters, tucked away in slightly too wide eyes and tense shoulders. A measure of anger drains out of her at the sight, replaced by her own twinge of guilt.

“I overheard Ensign Unixe telling Th’avorak that you snuck down to the lab during shift today despite the fact that you’re supposed to be on bedrest.” There’s less venom in her voice than she had planned, more watered down frustration and exasperation.

Rowan pulls out the PADD they’d been poorly hiding, poking halfheartedly at the screen once or twice. “I suppose you’re here to confiscate this.”

She takes it, glancing at the scrolling lines of data on sunspots and coronal mass ejections, pieces of code in the process of modification. “If you’re not going to follow doctor’s orders I’m going to bring Dr. Gwyn into this.”

“No, I’ll be good,” they say with a shake of their head. There’s no fear in their voice from the threat, just a bone deep exhaustion. “I just… couldn’t sleep, so I thought that I could at least get some work done instead of just sitting here uselessly.”

“You need to sleep so you can finish healing.”

“I know, it’s not that I’m not trying.” Their lips curve into a self-deprecating half smile. “As it turns out, almost dying will give you some pretty nasty nightmares. If I could remind myself of all the stuff in the universe that I still had to do, still had to study, all the reasons that I don’t want to die yet, I thought that maybe it would help.”

A tight knot in Ash’s chest that she’s been carrying ever since Rowan proclaimed that they didn’t care about the dangers of the job loosens. She could work with any reason at all, as long as Rowan didn’t want to die.

Slowly she hands the PADD back. “You’re not going to disobey a direct order again, are you?”

“I’m certainly not planning on it.”

“Well then I suppose the only thing to do it to sit with you while I’m off duty to make sure of it.” Ash drags a chair over next to their bedside, unzipping her uniform jacket and settling in. 

There’s an unspoken question on Rowan’s face, as though they want to ask it and can’t find the words. She sighs.

“I don’t remember much from Atania, and definitely very little in any coherent order. But I meant what I said when I told you that I wanted us to be friends again, concussion or not. I don’t understand what massive cosmic forces threw us together again, but I’ve got a second chance and I don’t want to ruin it.”

“I don’t think you’re the one in danger of ruining it this time around.”

Ash stares at them, the flame of absolute stubbornness flaring in her soul. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Now, what data was so important that you had to risk both Dr. Gwyn and Th’avorak’s wrath to go get?”

That finally sparks some degree of light in Rowan’s eyes, and before long they’re excitedly showing her the model they were working on to improve the Atania colony’s early warning system for ionic storms, lamenting the lack of data on the Atania sun, and explaining how these kinds of coronal mass ejections looked similar to and yet different from the readings they recently got from the collision between two white dwarfs. 

And in that moment, everything feels right.

And in that moment, it feels like healing.

And in that moment, Ash allows herself to believe that everything is going to work out.


End file.
